Hurricane Dorian - what can the UK do to help the Bahamas?

Hurricane Dorian is currently wreaking destruction across the idyllic paradise of the Bahamas, a small low-lying island nation in the West Indies. This former British Colony, and today member of the Commonwealth with Her Majesty the Queen as Head of State has been badly hit by hugely powerful winds and significant flooding.

Although it is too soon to assess the extent of the damage, it is likely to be wide reaching and substantial. Extensive humanitarian aid will be required, along with emergency life saving and rescue equipment to help rebuild the nation.

Already the UK has confirmed that the Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessel MOUNTS BAY is en route to render assistance if required. Without doubt, this is a spot of good news in a very difficult time.

The UK is well placed to offer support in the region, having invested considerably in capacity building across the West Indies to help increase national abilities to respond to natural disasters in recent years. Many of these island nations suffer from the challenges of having small populations, limited resources and a limited capacity to respond to overwhelming natural disasters.

Capability Demonstration by MOUNTS BAY

-Image by Ministry of Defence; © Crown copyright

Traditionally the Royal Navy maintained a frigate or destroyer (and sometimes a RIVER class OPV) in the West Indies to carry out a combination of sovereignty patrols and disaster relief work. While these were capable ships, the destroyers and frigates were not optimal for disaster relief and were probably overly complex and capable for a region where the military threat is extremely limited.

In more recent years, to help better balance the escort force to areas where the need is higher, and to provide the right capability for the job, the UK has erred to deploy a BAY class LDS(A) on a long term basis in the region.

This deployment is optimised around keeping a large LSD(A) in the region for the period of hurricane season, and able to help as required, and the BAY class is absolutely perfect for this role. A large vessel at 18000 tonnes, with a big flight deck, a dock capable of taking landing craft, and a huge range of stores space, accommodation, medical facilities and mission planning facilities, the RFA MOUNTS BAY is probably the single most capable non-US vessel in the region to cope with the disaster relief challenge.

For the last nearly two years MOUNTS BAY has been based in the region working closely with a variety of nations to test and hone disaster relief exercises. In this role she has deployed with a tri-service force including units from the British Army and a Lynx Wildcat to conduct lift and reconnaissance work in damaged areas.

This long term basing approach has resulted in the UK being the best prepared external partner in the region to provide on scene support at the moment. The combination of a large capable ship, coupled with the right personnel and assets trained explicitly to carry out disaster relief work is a winning combination.

Right now MOUNTS BAY is en route to the Bahamas to see what assistance is required. Underpinned by an excellent use of social media on the ships twitter account, they are doing a sterling job of setting out what work they are doing, and when they hope to be in a position to offer assistance.

The challenge at times like this is knowing when it is appropriate to go ashore and render aid. Right now the winds are still too strong to permit safe flying (according to a tweet by the ship), but as soon as it is safe, then they will be airborne with liaison partners from the Royal Bahamas DefenceForce to identify where assistance is needed most.

This is a good chance to deepen links to the RBDF, which at 1600 strong and built around a naval force is a capable and professional force with strong links to the UK. Many of its personnel have trained, including at BRNC Dartmouth, and there will be many UK personnel with friends from the RBDF.

The next step will be to identify what support is needed and, if necessary, go ashore to provide it. Reports on social media suggest that there may be some kind of humanitarian reconnaissance team in the region too to identify what further UK support is required.

This is key as a lot of armchair commentators on social media will soon seem to think that the UK should have sent the whole lot, including the kitchen sink, out to the Bahamas in advance to provide help. Certainly after hurricane Irma in 2017 there was a huge raft on unfair and inaccurate criticism about the UK military presence not being appropriate for the task at hand.

The problem with this sort of natural disaster is that you don’t want to send help in ahead of time unless you know where you want it to be and you can guarantee its going to be undamaged. The MOUNTS BAY is a perfect operating base because she could avoid the hurricane and ride out the storms. However, had, for the sake of argument, a force built around ground troops and aviation been sent out as an advance party, the risks of their airfield being destroyed, and the aircraft grounded were high – the helpers would themselves have needed help.

Far better to pause, position assets as appropriate and then see what else may be required and if the UK is the right place to provide them. In this case MOUNTS BAY is a great starting platform to render initial aid and support, a capability underpinned by their long term presence in the region.

If further military help is required then the UK is well placed to offer it. In the aftermath of Irma, the RAF demonstrated once again its superb globe spanning strategic airlift capability by quickly flying in A400M aircraft with supplies and personnel to help, along with a variety of ground forces too.

The UKs continued ability to project power across the globe at short notice remains second only to that of the USA, and there is no doubt that if called on, the British Armed Forces could offer a superb range of assets if needed. For example there is a detachment of Grenadier Guards in Belize right now conducting jungle warfare training who represent probably the closest infantry force. They arrived with a C17 yesterday, which may be of use.

Additionally while the WESTLANT19 task group is some days sail away, and it is probably easier at short notice to airlift assets in to the region, it is still potentially possible that some ships may find themselves tasked to assist if needed.

That this can even be thought of as a potential course of action is also testament to the excellent work done at FOST, for whom getting deploying ships ready to conduct humanitarian assistance and disaster relief work is a key part of their training. The Royal Navy is very well trained to step into the breach if needed, and its personnel will have had access to world class training on how to conduct HADR and save lives.

Any operation from MOUNTS BAY and beyond will be continuing to add to the long and proud story of the Royal Navy (and wider British Forces) bringing aid to those who need it most. For example, in 2017 it was Hurricane Irma, and before that it was support to the Philippines under OP PATWIN in 2013 to give but a couple of examples.

More widely this situation helps reinforce the message about the superb work done by DFID and the FCO to help prepare and support the situation. The work by these organisations to render support, provide consular assistance and help work with the nations involved is fantastic, and a great testament to the ‘Global Britain’ vision.

This is made more powerful by the fact that the UK can ensure its aid, diplomatic and military organisations are able to work closely together and have long standing and well tested relationships that work. The phrase ‘fusion doctrine’ sums up what it means to bring the disparate parts of Government together to work as one, and this is likely to occur here.

The UK will almost certainly play a key part in providing help and support to the Bahamas to get them through this immensely difficult and challenging time. The strength and effectiveness of the immediately available MOD assets to respond, coupled with the phenomenally capable DfID and FCO abilities that can be drawn on too will go a long way to making a potentially lifesaving difference here.

In the difficult days ahead, hopefully the UK will be able to provide the best possible support for our friends in the Bahamas as they recover from hurricane Dorian.